My Art Practice is based in Edinburgh, and I also have a studio in Pittenweem, Fife. I enjoy the contrast between town and country, and the subject matter of my paintings usually comes from places that resonate with me in either Edinburgh, or Fife. I use the relatively traditional media of oil paint on canvas. My work is informed in part by an immersion in the careful study of the works of successful artists who have used such media. I have a great love of paintings that stems from when I was very young, when I used to collect postcards of paintings by Constable and Turner. I didn’t really know why I loved their paintings, or even asked myself why I loved their paintings – I just did. As one gets older, inevitably one becomes more analytical. I think about composition, colour theory, space, light, symbolism, place, scale and so on. All the formal aspects of painting. I also think about these things as an abstract painter might do. I love many paintings by abstract artists too, and of course I too have experimented in such a field. It is by choice that my work is ‘figurative’. It is the infinite variety that I find in nature, in landscape for example, that liberates me and protects me from repeating myself. My method is to follow my instincts.